On August 18, 1990, Whitesnake co-headlined the Monsters of Rock Festival at Castle Donington for over 75,000 fans. With a legendary lineup including David Coverdale on vocals, Steve Vai and Adrian Vandenberg on guitars, Rudy Sarzo on bass, and Tommy Aldridge on drums, this live double CD/DVD set has been the most requested product from Whitesnake fans over the last ten years. The album opens with Coverdale’s signature “Here’s a song for ya!” and then “Slip of the Tongue” begins with a thick wall of chords and screaming guitar solos. You can already tell this isn’t like most live albums, which lose a lot of their potency to over-production. Without losing the raw sound that transports you twenty years back to the show, the re-mastered sound mixes the audience and drums up front, with the guitarists’ distinct and nuanced improvisation styles still clearly discernible. Unfortunately, Sarzo’s bass often gets lost in the cacophony, but still, the album sounds fantastic, with “Slide It In” bringing in another head-banging hit.
The classic “Judgment Day” follows with shimmering guitar work, while “Slow An’ Easy” is as erotically charged and blistering as ever, with eight minutes of perfectly timed seduction, climax, and release. This is a song for air guitar—or, now that we live in a technological age, a song for Guitar Hero. There’s a mostly a capella break, kept in time with a brutal drum beat, until it erupts again into frenetic shredding and wild riffs. “Kitten’s Got Claws” brings much of the same, sounding like if a pissed off bottle of Wild Turkey were to take a stab at live performance.
There’s a break from the hits when Coverdale introduces Vandenberg, the “Flying Dutchman,” on “Adagio for Strato.” Feedback-heavy guitar yelps give the air an almost palpable electric charge that makes you really feel like you’re at the show. You can picture the audience standing there, eyes rapt with attention until the spell is broken with the crunchy drums and upper-fret board licks of “Flying Dutchman Boogie.” This song proves that not all hard rockers strap on guitars like phallic extensions of themselves—or if they do, they can also show emotion, as Coverdale does on the classic rock ballad “Is This Love.” The raucous and raunchy “Cheap An’ Nasty” comes next before Disc One closes with the 13-minute “Crying in the Rain.” The audience, or “Whitesnake choir,” sings parts of the verses, engendering solidarity between them and the listener of today, while the guitars truly sound like they’re caterwauling through the scales. Aldridge’s drumming is absolutely out of control, its syncopated cross-rhythms and tempo changes mimicking the sound of heavy rainfall for a solid four-and-a-half minute solo—the stuff encores are made of.
Disc Two starts off with the classic blues piece, “Fool For Your Loving” (and the penultimate “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City” is another nod to the band’s blues period) before Coverdale introduces Steve Vai to the audience as “His Royal Darkness, the Seven-Stringed Sorceror!” Vai wastes no time living up to his name on the following tracks from his Passion & Warfare album, “For the Love of God” and “The Audience is Listening.” Hummingbird-quick riffs dissolve into soaring slides and bends that then spiral back into incendiary licks for five minutes. After a little bit of too much soloing, “Here I Go Again” seems to be a sort of “gift” to the audience, as Coverdale repeatedly direct addresses Donington and has them sing the chorus. On “Bad Boys,” Coverdale is both rockin’ and gender-inclusive, adding “and girls!” after a couple epic choruses. The final song, “Still of the Night,” is similarly huge—definitely big enough to fill the arena that is Donington Castle. Sure, they might have had to follow up Aerosmith, but Whitesnake maintained the essence of each song while adventurously tweaking them to create a powerhouse set of its own. This live album release proves their music ages well.
Key Tracks: Slow An’ Easy, Adagio for Strato, Crying in the Rain
Sarah Madges- Muzikreviews.com Staff
July 28, 2011
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